It staggered! And stumbled!
Tay Aillig glanced down at the gemstone, his eyes sparkling.
* * *
She was lost, and floating in empty air, leaving the world, leaving life itself. She had no idea of where Brayth had gone, or if he was still alive.
She told herself that she didn’t care.
She knew it to be a lie, though, for deep inside, she did care, and she wanted Brayth to be dead.
She remembered the murderous bite of the demon fossa, and expected that her desire would be granted. Guilt accompanied that notion, but Aoleyn found that the thought of the man’s potentially horrible death did not trouble her as much as it would have earlier that same evening. And so, she let it go.
Instead, Aoleyn wondered if she was still alive.
All about her was dark, red and black, a world of silhouettes and shadows, with no sense of solidity or warmth, no sense of anything at all.
Silent, still, empty, dead.
But then, in the midst of the emptiness, there came a flash of color, green and bright. A flash of light that beckoned to her.
Aoleyn willed herself toward the tiny speck of light, flew faster and faster though she could hear no wind and feel no breeze or even any sensation of movement. She just saw the light, the only speck of brightness and warmth in the midst of the shadows.
It grew, now a beacon. It blinded her, but that did not deter her, no. She flew for it desperately, out of options, almost out of hope.
She passed through it, a sudden, lightninglike shock, and she shuddered, and felt the corporeal movement of her own body.
There she sat, groaning, whimpering, trying to sort out thoughts that would not straighten. She tried to remember her name, thought of Usgar, of the cave, and, to her surprise, of Bahdlahn.
Finally, she found some solidity, some sense of the life she had known. She felt and saw her hands trembling. A twitch kept knocking her head to the side, involuntarily. Her life force continued to crackle and jolt, and for a long while would not steady.
A mewling to the side caught her notice and grounded her. Surprised, confused, Aoleyn at last blinked open her eyes, to find herself sitting in Seonagh’s tent.
Her crystals lay on the floor before her, and instinctively, she reached for them. But she stopped before her hand touched the pile, noticing that there beside her sat Seonagh. Aoleyn called to her.
The woman didn’t seem to hear, didn’t react at all to Aoleyn. But she, too, was shaking, and whimpering softly.
“Seonagh?” Aoleyn said curiously, reaching for her. She realized then that Seonagh was holding crystals of her own, and from the look on her face, the witch was deeply into them, was entranced in the song of Usgar.
Aoleyn pulled her hand back and thought again of her brief encounter with the fossa, and then realized the truth of her disengagement.
“Seonagh!” she cried. The woman had come to her in her joining with Brayth. The woman, her mentor, had thrown Aoleyn aside and out of the monster’s magical grasp.
Seonagh didn’t answer, but she did yelp a bit and her face scrunched, as if in pain.
She was still there, Aoleyn knew! Seonagh had rejoined Brayth and so now was doing battle with the fossa.
Aoleyn had to get to her, to help her. She reached for the symphony of crystals, unsure of how to even begin. She should start with the wedstone, she supposed, to escape her mortal coil.
Seonagh cried out, screamed in sudden agony and horror.
Aoleyn grabbed hard at the magical shards Seonagh grasped. She yanked the woman’s hands apart and slapped the crystals from her hand, then pulled the former witch so that her face was very near, and began screaming for Seonagh to come back to her.
The older woman began to tremble and gasp. Her eyelids fluttered, but she did not open her eyes for any length of time, and in those brief moments when Aoleyn could see her orbs, they seemed unfocused, as if Seonagh was looking far, far away.
The older woman’s lips moved, but no understandable sounds came forth.
Just grunts and gasps and empty breaths.
* * *
By the time a very shaken Tay Aillig stumbled back beyond the rocky ridge to rejoin his warriors, the original fight had all but ended. A handful of Usgar had been wounded, but only one seriously, and the ground about them was littered with the corpses of ten sidhe.
“Where is Brayth?” Aghmor asked, the moment he rejoined Tay Aillig at the right end of the line.
Tay Aillig shook his head, his expression grim, and that elicited a response the Usgar-laoch did not expect.
“What did you do?” Aghmor asked in a low voice.
Tay Aillig stared at him in disbelief, his eyes boring into the young man’s until Aghmor had to look away. Tay Aillig let his gaze slip down then, to note that Aghmor’s hands were clenched tightly upon his spear.
Not taking any chances, Tay Aillig dropped his own spear and stepped in closer, suddenly, then grabbed Aghmor’s spear midshaft with his left hand and sent his right up under the man’s jaw, grabbing hard.
Aghmor brought his own hand up to claw at Tay Aillig’s wrist and tug as he tried to squirm away, but he could not break the mighty warrior’s grasp.
Tay Aillig knew that he had the attention of the other tribesmen, all bristling nervously, but he didn’t care. With frightening strength, he yanked Aghmor around and locked him in place, forcing the man to look up the mountainside.
Aghmor struggled futilely and grunted in protest against the painful clench, but then, all of a sudden, the man just stopped, and slumped, and his grunt became a gulp.
For up there across a clear expanse on a higher mountain spur, he noted the black form moving swiftly and low to the ground, dragging something.
Something he knew to be his friend.
Tay Aillig roughly shoved him back and retrieved his spear, then called to the others, “Form! Form! Sidhe to the right.”
Indeed, the fight wasn’t over, as the group that had been chased off by the fossa had now returned, with reinforcements.
“Bend the line!” Tay Aillig ordered, motioning for half a dozen warriors to come up above him on the mountain, forming a right angle to the main line, which he anchored. The rest of the sidhe came on then, once more, from their original direction.
Having had time to shake off the initial shock of the Usgar ambush, and no longer having to worry about the fossa, the sidhe moved against the tribesmen in force, a straight line of goblin Raiders with all flanks supported.
“Crouch! Hold!” Tay Aillig commanded. He did a quick count. He had more than thirty warriors still able to fight, against almost twice that number of sidhe, but they held the higher ground, except on this flank, where they were on even footing with their enemies.
He could have called for a retreat, but that would have sealed the doom of at least one of his warriors. He had already lost one.
No more.
The sidhe charge up the mountainside ended abruptly in a furious barrage of lightning and fire, as Usgar spear tips exploded against the front ranks.
“Hold this angle!” Tay Aillig told Aghmor, yanking him into position of the two wings of their line. “For your life and honor!”
Tay Aillig ran, straight up the mountainside, tapping each man on the back as he passed, telling them to hold fast. When he got to the last man, he reiterated that call, then to the surprise of them all, and to the ten sidhe coming in, the mighty warrior leaped out from the ranks, back toward the rocky ridgeline, to meet the charge alone.
He swept his spear across left to right, let go with his left hand as it flew out wide, until the shaft locked against his lower back, stopping the swing cold. A sudden twist sent the weapon sweeping back the other way, at belt level, and with such power that it slapped away the sidhe weapons and forced the monsters back.
Tay Aillig lifted his arm as the spear came around, sending it into a spin over his head, once and then again, and with each sweep, the man moved, up higher, down lo
wer, changing his angle, shifting his hips, forcing the sidhe to react.
Tay Aillig let go of his spear in the sweep, catching it midshaft in his left hand, and turning back for a sudden thrust that put the tip into a sidhe’s chest, releasing a burst of flames a heartbeat later.
Back across swept the spear, a mirror image of the first maneuver with Tay Aillig’s left hand going out wide this time until the spear’s shaft locked against his lower back, then sweeping left to right once more, and up over his head and around again.
Behind that second sweep came a sidhe, club swinging hard to smash Tay Aillig in the chest.
And he took it! He managed to keep his wits while shrugging off the explosion of pain, and turned back with sudden fury and force, pivoting around the creature and shoving it with all his strength to send it tumbling back toward his line of warriors.
They leaped upon the creature, Aghmor leading, all stabbing furiously and then retreating to their defensive positions once more.
Tay Aillig launched a ferocious dance, jumping and swinging, unconcerned about actually scoring any hits. He was baiting the enemies, nothing more.
He taunted and spat, and he kicked at the sidhe he had stabbed as it squirmed on the ground, garnering the attention of the sidhe and gradually moving back a step, then another.
“Aghmor!” he called, a warning.
Then he stopped, suddenly, and the sidhe leaped at him as one, spears and clubs leading.
But Tay Aillig called upon the green flecks in the weapon Mairen had blessed, and with a sudden twitch, leaped backward, the levitation strengthening his spring. He landed right before his line, the sidhe bearing in on him, and fell as he touched down.
“Throw!” Aghmor appropriately commanded, and his and a half-dozen other spears flew out into the faces of the charging sidhe. These were followed by seven warriors, each drawing knives, throwing punches, kicking, tackling, grabbing for fallen weapons—Usgar spear and sidhe club—anything to inflict pain.
Moments later, Tay Aillig was back among them, rushing between grappling Usgar, cracking one sidhe hard against the head with the butt of his spear as he passed.
Then out he slid, down low to one knee, and out he stabbed with all his might the other way, out and up, and he caught a sidhe in the belly and drove upward, rising to his feet with a roar, lifting the squealing and squirming creature up before him, then up above him.
With a heave, Tay Aillig sent the skewered sidhe flying away, back down the mountainside and back behind him, so that it crashed into its companions battling the Usgar line below.
Tay Aillig heard the cheers from his lower line, and the surprised screams of the sidhe, but he didn’t let it divert his attention. He turned back the other way, sliding the butt of his spear shaft out as he went to parry aside a sidhe spear. He turned all the way under it as he lifted it, putting his back to the monster, and before it could take advantage of that, it got a face full of Tay Aillig’s flying elbow, once and again.
Down it went and around came Tay Aillig, his spear spinning in his hands, twirling up high, changing its angle perfectly so that when he again faced the fallen sidhe, he could stab straight down, impaling it in the chest.
He ripped it right out again, though, and flung himself left and down low, sweeping the spear across to take the feet out from another charging sidhe.
Up he went to face yet another. A thrust drove it back, and on the retraction, Tay Aillig slid the shaft back again and stabbed it down several times, butt end first, into the face of the sidhe he had tripped, then as he reset his balance to meet the one he had driven back with the thrust, he stomped down upon the neck of that tripped and now-dazed enemy with bone-crunching force.
The sidhe before him skidded to a stop and fell back, wanting no part of this wild warrior. With the reprieve, Tay Aillig glanced left and right, all about, and took a quick measure.
This end of the line had routed the sidhe that had come over the rocky ridge. Aghmor and the other six were bloody, but still up for a fight, which was more than could be said for the remaining sidhe.
“Form!” Tay Aillig shouted. “Swing the door!”
The warriors disengaged and finished their kills, gathered their weapons quickly.
“Aghmor, hinge!” Tay Aillig demanded, and Aghmor scrambled back to his original position, at the right end of the main forward line. Tay Aillig centered the other seven as they charged around the pivoting Aghmor, sweeping down to drive hard into the left flank of the main body of sidhe.
Tay Aillig scored only one more kill. Shortly after the swinging maneuver, the sidhe broke ranks and fled as their flank collapsed.
A younger Tay Aillig would have ordered pursuit and chased the sidhe halfway down the mountain to satiate his bloodlust, but he understood the precipitating events of this bloody night. The sidhe had not come to raid the Usgar camp. It was entirely an accident that they had come this way at all, and so, routed here, they would not return.
A dozen Usgar warriors needed tending, himself included; every breath he drew pained him greatly against the ribs the sidhe’s club had cracked.
The Usgar didn’t even bother to kill those sidhe lying wounded on the ground. They gathered up their wounded and formed a defensive retreat for camp.
Tay Aillig kept Aghmor with him at the back of that formation, the two watching for any signs of enemies.
And both of them glancing repeatedly up the mountainside, to where the demon fossa had gone, to where dead Brayth had been dragged.
Aghmor understood that he had lost his best friend.
Tay Aillig believed he had just gained a powerful wife.
25
WHEN THE RED MOON SET
How sweet tasted the man-flesh. How satisfying to drink the blood.
In the dark, in the bone-filled pit, the fossa feasted on the corpse of Brayth, but this was just the dessert of its meal this day.
For the fossa had feasted on that incessant song, had bitten the magic of the mountains and had devoured it.
The human had thrown lightning at the creature, but lightning couldn’t hurt the fossa! No magical evocations could weaken this creature. Not in the red light of the Blood Moon!
No, the lightning had only made the fossa stronger, had only given it energy and sustenance. And the deeper bite the fossa had inflicted on the purveyor of that magic was not physical. The sorceress had come against the demon, in the realm of the spirit, and in that realm, the demon ate more hungrily, and each bite fed it more fully than man-flesh ever could.
The demon had reveled in the groans and screams of this man it now consumed. But the silent screams of the magic-user, singing her songs to her false god, rang sweeter still.
The fossa lifted its bloody face and looked up the pit, though of course, it could see little in the darkness. But in its mind, the demon saw past the dark stones, back to the open air it had known this night, under the calming red glow of the full moon. Yes, that sweet full moon, red and serene, breaking the maddening sound of magic that hummed continually in this mountain. How fine the freedom, how wonderful the ability to fight back against that vicious hum!
The fossa held the pose for just a moment, savoring the memory of the open air.
Then it plunged its toothy maw down hard on the body, bouncing it among the bones, chewing bones, crunching ribs and breaking through.
When it came back up from the corpse, Brayth’s torn heart hung out the side of its mouth.
* * *
“They think it the sidhe,” Talmadge told Khotai after the moon had set, the folk of Sellad Tulach back out and about, many simply too excited by the events of that night to find sleep.
“Sidhe?”
“Mountain goblins,” he explained. “Vicious brutes, though, bigger than the ones we see back east, but, thankfully, just as rarely seen. The folk believe we may have witnessed a battle upon the mountainside, sidhe against Usgar.”
“Will they send scouts?”
“No!” Tal
madge replied suddenly, and more forcefully than he had intended. “No,” he said again, more calmly. “The tribes of Loch Beag do not go up the mountain. Not ever. They see the Usgar as demons in human form.”
“That seems foolish.”
“You’ve never met an Usgar.”
“Have you?”
“I’ve seen the aftermath of their raids and heard the laments of … encounters. That’s enough to keep me near the lake.”
Khotai took a moment to digest all of that. She looked up the dark mountain and let her gaze linger there, and didn’t hide the intrigue on her face.
“This is a dangerous land,” she said. “Monsters in the lake. Big lizards that like to eat the flesh of men. Demon-men on the mountain. Goblins. I wonder why anyone stays.”
“This is their home. The only one they’ve ever known, and not without its charm,” Talmadge answered.
“Charming enough to keep you coming here? Or profitable enough?”
Talmadge laughed. “Both.”
“And enough for you to keep it Talmadge’s secret?”
He looked at her curiously, and shook his head to show that he knew where this was heading, and it was a discussion they had already had.
But Khotai simply smiled back and sidled up to him, draping her arms about his neck. “Or was it just me?” she asked in a husky voice. “Were you afraid that I’d steal your secret? Your profits?”
“I care nothing for that.”
“What does Talmadge care about?”
“You.”
The exciting events of the night seemed far away then as more pressing needs rose between the lovers. Khotai backed up, holding him close every step, then disappeared under the flap of their tent, Talmadge right behind.
She put her finger against his pursed lips to hold him back for a moment. “Will you be taking me back to this place?” she asked, lying beside him.
“Do we even have to leave?”
The question hit Khotai by surprise. But she didn’t say no. She didn’t say another word, in fact, until the sun was long up the next morning.
* * *
The Blood Moon hung low in the western sky when the Usgar warriors limped back into their encampment, many bleeding. Tay Aillig grimaced with every breath, certain that he had cracked more than one rib, but when a witch came to him with the healing wedstone, he brushed her aside and kept walking right past the gathering, across the encampment.